User:Michael P Cottam

EARLY YEARS
Michael P Cottam (Born May 27, 1963) Blackburn, Lancashire, UK.

A creative from a young age; Michael is a self-taught fine artist with the goal of one day working in the film industry after being inspired by the release of Star Wars in the 1970’s. Michael's first art (A set of Pencil Drawings shown below) was published in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph in 1975.

In 1979 Michael had to put his artistic dreams on hold to pursue a career in electrical engineering and abruptly became an apprentice electrician. It was very strange that his first job as an apprentice was to install equipment in the new offices and printing presses of the Lancashire Evning Telegraph, the equipment installed by Michael created the first newspaper in the world that used digital editing and later the same computers would be the first to send news to the World Wide Web daily. Other firsts for Michael as he worked as an electrician came later when he worked on the machine that created the first CD at Philips and later he built the jigs that held the Eurofighter Typhoon during the early production phase at British Aerospace. One of the strangest installation jobs Michael encountered was the Claxby Radar Station in Glaxby Lincolnshire.

3D ART
Michael's first encounter with 3D modeling came in 1990 when his first job was to model the proposed Manchester Velodrome Another high for Michael's 3D art was the first ever showing of a computer game on the BBC show Film in 1998 with Barry Norman, a short clip was show of the intro of the Privateer 2 (The Darkening) game.

3D FOR GAMES
In 1993 Michael met Erin and Chris Roberts along with Richard Garriott who introduced him to the game industry in Austin Texas. Since then, Michael has not looked back and worked for some of the largest game companies in the world.

To date Michael has completed eighteen games; working in England the United States, Canada, Australia and Singapore. Michael eventually had the privilege of working for Mr.George Lucas in 2002 building spacecraft for Star Wars. During this time Michael also helped Doug Chiang to make trailers for Robota (Reign of the Machines)

Michael is best known for creating art for the following games: Privateer 2 (The Darkening), DarkLight (Conflict), The Contract, Star Trek (Invasion), Starlancer , Gladiator , Rally Championship Xtream, Archipelago , Secret Weapons Over Normandy, Gladius, Sam and Max, Star Wars (Republic Commando), Mercenaries, Star Wars (Battlefront), SSX (On Tour), Need For Speed (Carbon), Batman (Dark Knight), Avatar (Book 3 - Fire).

GAME DEVELOPERS AND GAMES
EZIT Manchester, UK - 1993 - 1994

Digital Creations Manchester, UK - 1993 1994

EA Manchester, UK - 1998 - 2001

· DarkLight (Conflict) (Rage/EA Game) · Privateer 2 (The Darkening) (ORIGIN Game) · Feather Man (EA Game) · Rally Championship Xtream (Actualize Game)

Psygnosis, Manchester and Chester, UK - 1997 - 1998

· The Contract (Sony Game)

Warthog Manchester, UK - 1998 - 2001

· Star Trek (Invasion) (Activision Game) · Starlancer (PC) (Microsoft Game) · Gladiator (Warthog Game)

Totally Games San Rafael, California, USA - 2001 - 2002

· Secret Weapons Over Normandy (LucasArts Game) · Archipelago (Microsoft Game)

LucasArts/Film San Rafael, California, USA - 2002 - 2004

· Star Wars (Battlefront) (LucasArts/Pandemic Game) · Mercenaries (LucasArts/Pandemic Game) · Star Wars (Republic Commando) (LucasArts Game) · Sam and Max (LucasArts Game) · Gladius (LucasArts Game)

Doug Chiang Studio San Rafael, California, USA - 2004

· Robota (Reign of the Machines)

EA Vancouver, Canada 2004 - 2007

· Need For Speed (Carbon) (EA BlackBox Game) · SSX (On Tour) (EA Big Game)

Pandemic Brisbane, Australia - 2007

· Batman (Dark Knight) EA - Brisbane Australia

THQ Brisbane, Australia - 2007 - 2008

· Avatar (Book 3 - Fire)

TEACHING
SAE Institute of Technology Singapore

Head of Game and Animation Lecturer: SAE (University) – Singapore 2009

· BFA Degree (Games and Animation) for SAE – Singapore

DIGIPEN Institute of Technology Singapore

Senior Game and Animation Lecturer: DIGIPEN (University) – Singapore (Current Position) 2009

· Masters Degree (Game and Animation) for UBISOFT – Singapore · BFA Degree (Games and Animation) for DIGIPEN – Singapore